1. Field of the Invention
The present invention is related to the field of semiconductor circuit design and processing and more particularly to design of buffers suitable for use with transmission line conductors associated with integrated circuits.
2. Description of the Related Art
In many environments in which semiconductor devices are used, the conductors used to link the various devices behave in a manner similar to a transmission line. FIG. 1A illustrates a prior art transmission line environment. Buffer 110 drives transmission line 120, which is terminated to ground by termination impedance 130. Termination impedance 130 and buffer 110 preferably have the same impedance Z0. With such a matched impedance situation, reflections are minimized leading to enhanced signal quality.
It is common to use resistive termination for buses on printed circuit boards, and many semiconductor devices are mounted in packaged form on printed circuit boards. Resistors have a well-known voltage transfer curve (IV curve). Ideally, a resistor has a linear voltage transfer curve, and a typical resistor may be assumed to have an ideal or linear voltage transfer curve. However, the buffers contained within semiconductor devices (such as buffer 110) rarely have a linear voltage transfer curve.
FIG. 1B illustrates a voltage transfer curve plot for various circuit elements. In particular, the straight line marked Rideal represents the linear voltage transfer curve of a resistor and the curved lines represent voltage transfer curves for an insulated gate FET device. Moreover, the dashed lines Rac1 and Rac2 represent the slope of the IV curve for the insulated gate FET at two regions, and it will be apparent that the difference in slope between Rac1 and Rac2 is significant. An insulated gate FET biased in a certain operational area may be expected to behave as a resistor for small deviations from the bias point (small signals). Rac1 and Rac2 may represent the resistance of an insulated gate FET for small signals when biased at the points where the corresponding IV curve of the insulated gate FET intersects those lines. The nonlinear MOS IV characteristics can result in imperfect termination, thereby increasing inter-symbol interference and degrading signal quality.
It is recognized that a combination of the insulated gate FET and an additional resistor (such as an off-chip series resistor for example) may achieve a more linear IV characteristic. However, this requires an additional component and corresponding opportunities for yield loss or variation in the circuitry. Similarly, a resistor may be formed on-chip between the bond pad and the insulated gate FET structure (or between the insulated gate FET structure and a power/ground rail). However, this may also require additional processing steps, may use up area that must be dedicated at the edge of the device, and may result in additional constraints on the overall design of the device.